Skip to main content

B2B Virtual Cards will Expand Global Online Payments

Despite having existed for more than a decade, virtual cards have been applied to a limited range of business cases for much of their history; primarily Business to Business (B2B) travel purchasing and commercial vehicle fleet management.

However, the benefits of card virtualization are starting to evolve outside this narrow application, which is already having an impact on adjacent sectors -- including a move by several fintech players into the business to consumer space, thereby augmenting online account security through the use of their virtual cards.

Virtual Card Market Development

According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, the annual value of virtual cards (e.g. temporary card numbers only available for a single transaction or limited time) used by businesses will grow by 90 percent over the next four years -- exceeding $1 trillion by 2022.

This is up from an estimated annual value of $568 million in 2019. However, Juniper analysts believe that the technology will struggle to establish itself among several other global online payment methods -- making up a small proportion of B2B money transfer transactions overall.


The key benefits of virtual cards are that they can be used as anti-fraud measures, as even if the card details are intercepted, they cannot be used by the fraudster.

The new market study findings note that financial services will be the fastest growing adopter of virtual cards, with transaction volumes growing at an average of 18.3 percent between 2019 and 2022.

Commercial cards are well-established in fleet businesses, but virtual card growth will be slow here due to the need for payments at a point-of-sale (POS) when purchasing fuel for vehicles.

According to the Juniper assessment, healthcare has the potential to become the highest value sector for B2B virtual cards, representing $277 billion in transactions by 2022, but adoption may be low within this sector.

As an example, the research findings anticipate that only 4 percent of healthcare institutions globally will adopt virtual cards, due to the relatively high processing charges.

Outlook for Virtual Card Application Growth

Juniper expects virtual cards for consumers to generate over $14 billion in revenues for card providers by 2022, primarily from remote purchases.

Companies offering these services are typically positioned as protecting consumers’ privacy, offering other digital ID-based services alongside their virtual cards.

"Virtual cards offer a number of financial management possibilities, for both business and consumer use," said James Moar, senior analyst at Juniper Research. "However, the limits of the technology currently mean that virtual cards need to be part of a wider payment or security product."

Popular posts from this blog

Demand for Quantum Computing as a Service

The enterprise demand for quantum computing is still in its early stages, growing slowly. As the technology becomes more usable, we may see demand evolve beyond scientific applications. The global quantum computing market is forecast to grow from $1.1 billion in 2022 to $7.6 billion in 2027, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). That's a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 48.1 percent. The forecast includes base Quantum Computing as a Service, as well as enabling and adjacent Quantum Computing as a Service. However, this updated forecast is considerably lower than IDC's previous quantum computing forecast, which was published in 2021, due to lower demand globally. Quantum Computing Market Development In the interim, customer spend for quantum computing has been negatively impacted by several factors, including: slower than expected advances in quantum hardware development, which have delayed potential return on inve

AI Semiconductor Revenue will Reach $119.4B

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) and/or the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) will guide Generative AI initiatives within the large enterprise C-Suite. They may already have the technical expertise and experience to understand the capabilities and limitations of Gen AI. They also have the authority and budget to make the necessary investments in infrastructure and talent to support Gen AI initiatives. Enterprise AI infrastructure is proven to be expensive to build, operate and maintain. That's why public cloud service provider solutions are often used for new AI use cases. AI Semiconductor Market Development Semiconductors designed to execute Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads will represent a $53.4 billion revenue opportunity for the global semiconductor industry in 2023, an increase of 20.9 percent from 2022, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. "The developments in generative AI and the increasing use of a wide range AI-based applications in data c

Global Public Cloud Spending to Reach $1.35T

Most digital transformation is enabled by cloud solutions. Worldwide spending on public cloud services is forecast to reach $1.35 trillion in 2027, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Although annual spending growth is expected to slow slightly over the 2023-2027 forecast period, the market is forecast to achieve a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.9 percent. "Cloud now dominates tech spending across infrastructure, platforms, and applications," said Eileen Smith, vice president at IDC . Public Cloud Services Market Development IDC believes that most organizations have adopted the public cloud as a cost-effective platform for hosting enterprise applications, and for developing and deploying customer-facing solutions. Looking forward, the cloud computing model remains well positioned to serve customer needs for innovation in application development and deployment -- including as data, artificial intelligence